The Reporter

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Nairobi, December
30, 2013--An Ethiopian court convicted a journalist on December 25
on the charge of spreading false rumors and sentenced him to two years and nine
months in prison, according to local journalists.

If you search for the name of Ethiopia's prime minister, Meles Zenawi,
on Twitter these days, you'll see a flurry of incongruent postings: Meles is hospitalized
in critical
condition; he's fine and returning to work; he died two weeks ago;
he's on holiday.
Journalists for international news outlets have tried to sort out fact from
rumor, but they've gotten no help from Ethiopian government officials who
offered only vague assurances that the country's longtime leader was ill but recovering.
In Ethiopia, where the government has imposed increasingly repressive measures
on the domestic press corps, news coverage has been minimal and contradictory.

International news outlets, such as Reuters, The Associated Press, and the BBC, reported last week that Meles was hospitalized for an undisclosed condition. Reuters, citing diplomatic sources, said he was being treated in Brussels, although even that scant nugget of information was not officially confirmed.